Tom Steyer’s Need to Impeach campaign is going local.
Beginning next week, his organization will have a paid field program in place with organizers on the ground in the congressional districts of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) in an effort to cajole them into supporting impeachment hearings. According to Kevin Mack, chief strategist for Steyer’s impeachment campaign, the effort will also involve digital and television ads as well as a town hall in those two districts.
The campaign, named “Operation Accountability,” won’t end with those two key members. In the coming weeks, the campaign will announce another ten or more members of Congress that will be targets including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), the new chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Because Waters already supports impeaching President Donald Trump, the effort in her district will focus more on thanking her for being outspoken on the matter.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The American people have a right to know what’s going on with their government and their democracy,” Mack told The Daily Beast. “We feel strongly that the legislative branch is a co-equal branch of government. It’s time for them to stop putting all their eggs in the Mueller basket,” he said referring to the ongoing investigation from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Mack also noted that Need to Impeach, which has amassed an email list of at least seven million supporters, conducted district-level polling in both Neal and Nadler’s districts that showed impeachment is popular among their constituents. In Neal’s district, an online poll conducted by Change Research polling 813 likely 2020 primary voters, found that 70 percent were much less likely to support their member of Congress if they opposed impeachment. In Nadler’s district, that number was 65 percent.
The Operation Accountability campaign is the first major foray Steyer has made since he traveled to Iowa last month to announce that he was passing up a presidential run in 2020 to focus on impeachment instead. At that press conference, he pledged to spend $40 million on those efforts, a chunk of which is going to this project. Steyer has also been hosting a two-day impeachment summit in Washington D.C. during which participants will deliver Articles of Impeachment to members of Congress.
